Busy playing.

I finished the rune book cover with a rub of copper gilding wax and was very relieved when the pages went in fairly evenly.

I now have to decide what to do with the spine.  Shall I leave it alone or do something decorative with it?

I am going on another of Frances Pickering's weekend courses shortly, and to get myself in the mood for the approaching one I folded a long strip of paper and made this tiny accordian book with a doodled sketch along it's length and a couple of lines from a poem by William Wordsworth.  The theme for the workshop is the written word and we are to work in black and white, though they can be mixed to produce grey, and we are allowed one accent colour.

I am hoping to work with lines from John Clare's works as I love the countryside and trees in particular.

But I do have a terrible tendency to change my mind at the last minute and do something completely different.   I shall find out on the day!

I look round at my overstuffed workroom and decided that I either need to throw a lot more stuff away or start using it all.   As I can't bear to part with any more I have made a start.  Here are the first pages of an altered book.  The book was 50p from a charity shop and I gessoed the pages before spraying them with coloured inks and when dry I stuck the torn top layers of paper serviettes on top.  I used gel medium as the glue because it doesn't tear the tissue as easily as ordinary glue.

I am not used to working in this way and haven't decided quite what to do next.   It's a nice project to have on hand to go back to when I've nothing else in the pipeline.

I also looked at my collection of fabric, lace and bits, and took pity on my daughters who will have to clear my workroom out one day if I become incapable of doing it myself.   As I seem to keep wanting to make fabric books and love these old illustrations from another charity shop book.  (I also have ideas for at least two more books and plenty of old sheeting for pages).

Some of the pages are made from fabrics I bundled up and left out in the garden for weeks last year.  They have lovely discolourations, some from the plant material I included in the bundles.

Not all the fabric pieces are the same size so I have added strips of lace to make them wider and/or deeper.

I must just decline the next offer of fabric and threads when someone says to me 'You sew don't you?  Would you like my mother-in-law's sewing threads/tapestry wools/rag-bag?'